Distributed Elgg model
By jace
Not sure if this has been discussed before, but what do any of you think about a distributed Elgg model. I read with interest the facebook alternative diaspora supposedly being a distributed model of social network nodes where you of course the idea is you own the data, either on your own server or pay someone to host it for you.
Is this not something that could already be achieved with Elgg?
i.e. could we create plugins that communicate with other Elgg instances and share friends, wire data etc. ultimately creating a network of Elgg nodes.
I'd be interested to know what you think and has this already been discussed in the past.
Is it viable? What are the technical challenges you perceive?
Thanks for you interest and repsonses.
Regards
- Mark Bridges@MisterBridges
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- jace@jace
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- DhrupDeScoop@Dhrup2000
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- Minds@Minds
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- DhrupDeScoop@Dhrup2000
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- Mike Zacher (vazco)@vazco
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You must log in to post replies.Interesting idea... This would I guess create something akin to Ning? Having looked at the Facebook Graph API, it would be quite possible to have better integration between elgg and thet platform... for example, a new user who is a member of a group which is mirrored on elgg could be automatically joined to it, and any friends they have on the elgg site could be automatically friended as well (providing they either sign up with Fb connect oe input their Fb id into their settings).
Sure you would not want all the Facebook groups... many of which are truely fassile, but those with relavance could be created on the elgg site and if given the guid of the facebook group... hey presto!
This would be great for a site like mine. I have a facebook group and a Page that re[present my site on Facebbok, but groups there are pretty useless with very few optiones etc... the elgg groups on the other hand can be very rich indeed.
Alas, I would not know how to start building such an integration module, but I can certainly see some potential... Food for thought?
I hadn't come across Ning, so thanks for the heads up on that :)
Although I think this more about creating nodes of personal data (data you own) that interact with other nodes (or seeds as described diaspora site http://www.joindiaspora.com/project.html ). This potentially provides 2 key benefits.
1. The site is distributed creating a potential for better scalability
2 (the main driver). The issue of concerns over e.g. Facebooks security and data woes is solved by making sure each member "owns" their own data and it is only shared with their friends and NOT a central server and organisation potentially looking to exploit that information for personal gain.
I'm not sure this is viable through an Elgg model, but was interested in what people thought. I guess in a way each user becomes a separate instance and data is shared with other instances (or friends). Of course I'm not sure yet how diaspora overcome the potential problems of each user managing their own instance!
http://www.slideshare.net/Dhrup2000/distributed-elgg-design-concept
How's this coming? Any updates?
coming up good ;)
To be honest, I don't get the benefits of this idea. If you want to distribute your data, you can simply use cloud computing, which is more efficient than using multiple servers. What is exactly the benefit of such distributed system?
The only one I can think of is that some site could offer it's data and users for sell for other sites, however I don't think users of this original site would like this... Another possible advantage is to eg. access content from other site, although I think RSS feeds are better for this. Can someone maybe give some clear advantages of such solution?